The present invention relates to an IC card system using an IC card, more particularly to an IC card processing system and method which conform to the transmission and reception on communication network.
IC cards have been utilized by an electronic computer such as personal computer and work station or by a portable terminal in various fields such as recording and managing authentication of individuals and information of individuals by utilizing IC cards or carrying out payment by IC cards. In order to execute a process for read/write of data and an application program which are recorded in an IC card or a specified process by utilizing data read out of an IC card, the operational environment including the aforementioned electronic computer needs a driver application program for accessing the IC card, an interface application program necessary for a user to carry out smooth operation or an application program for performing a manager-like operation which manages these application programs. Especially, for the sake of conforming to an IC card which has been subjected to version-up with the aim of adding the function related to security of the IC card and expanding the function, the operational environment must be adjusted by partly or totally replacing the application program stored in such a host machine as the aforementioned computer or portable terminal with an up-to-date application program or by adding an up-to-date application program, and an IC card conforming to the IC card subjected to version-up must be reconstructed. Then, to acquire the up-to-date application program needed at that time, a magazine or an attached manual is confirmed and thereafter, contact is made to the offerer to receive the up-to-date application program stored in a medium including a floppy disc and work of fetching the received up-to-date application program into the operational environment is carried out.
When the work of replacement and addition of the specified application program is generated by the function addition and function expansion as described above, the system manager has to access the specified application offerer and to this end, uses the host machine such as personal computer or work station to reconstruct an intended operational environment by down-loading the specified application program from a network such as an internet to the operational environment inclusive of the host machine or by installing the specified application from a recording medium such as a floppy disc to the operational environment and performing environment setting in accordance with an instruction in a guidance or a manual displayed on a selected screen. In order to down-load or install the specified application program, it is necessary to follow such a procedure as license contract with the application offerer and payment of the rent, so that work load imposed on the system manager is increased and the operational environment setting is so complicated as to disturb widespread use of the IC card system.
The present invention contemplates elimination of the conventional drawbacks and it is an object of the present invention to improve or simplify the capability of operation for acquiring, through a communication line, information concerning IC cards and information necessary for an operational environment in which an application program, data or service is operated on a host machine such as personal computer or work station. Further, the invention intends to take advantage of easy service receiving so as to improve various kinds of function realizable by the use of IC cards and enrich card related services.
According to the present invention, to accomplish the above object, in a system having, for example, an IC card written with operation information for start and execution of an application program and service which are stored in the IC card and access destination information for an offerer which offers data, an IC card read/write unit, a host machine unit such as personal computer, work station or portable telephone set for controlling the IC card read/write unit and communication through a communication circuit network, and a server system connected to the communication network such as a public telephone line to offer various kinds of information, the host machine unit reads the access destination information stored in the IC card through the IC card read/write unit to automatically connect to the server system representing an information source connected to the communication circuit network, and the server system automatically offers the offering operation information and data to the host machine unit, IC card or an information recipient designated by a utilizer to cause it to construct an environment in which the application program and service stored in the IC card can be executed.